ESPN’s Brian Windhorst Talks NBA Playoffs with Rich

Brian Windhorst joined The Rich Eisen Show with a backdrop of Boston in honor of the looming Celtics-Sixers Game 7, then spent the next twenty minutes pulling apart what is shaping up to be one of the most chaotic first rounds the NBA has produced in years.

The headline, in Windhorst's view, was Boston's wobble. The defending champions had no answer in their loss to Philadelphia, and the ESPN insider laid the blame on a familiar bad habit. Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, he argued, keep hunting mismatches and trying to win one-on-one possessions instead of letting the offense breathe. Joe Mazzulla finally waved the white flag in the fourth quarter, pulling his starters with two minutes gone, and his bench promptly went on an 11-0 run by simply running the offense and moving the ball.

On the other side, Windhorst credited Joel Embiid for going old school. With James Harden setting him up, Embiid has 16 assists over the last two games, the Sixers playing inside-out the way teams used to before the three-point boom.

The Atlanta Hawks did not get the same forgiveness. Rich asked what to call Atlanta's collapse if Mazzulla's move was a white flag. Windhorst's verdict: unconditional surrender. He floated a new term for it, the courtesy six, a six-game series so lopsided the loser only got close because of two coin-flip wins. Rich offered to have RES Consulting punch up the phrase.

From there the conversation moved to the Knicks, who had already booked their second-round ticket. Windhorst pointed to the under-the-hood numbers, top-eight offense and defense, top-five in clutch, and to a wrinkle Mike Brown installed mid-series. Karl-Anthony Towns, a career three-assists-a-game player, suddenly piled up 26 assists across three games as a point center. Windhorst compared the action to the Draymond Green sets Brown ran during his Warriors years.

The biggest indictment came over Denver. Windhorst called Minnesota's win the most impressive first-round upset since the We Believe Warriors of 2007, and he was unsparing about what it means for the Nuggets. "Inexcusable," he said, twice. One conference finals appearance in the four years Nikola Jokic has been carrying the franchise, and the team has already fired a successful coach, fired a successful GM, and traded away picks. Owner Stan Kroenke, Windhorst noted, runs disciplined books and is not going to spend through a luxury tax to fix it.

Jokic told reporters he wants to be a Nugget, and Windhorst expects him to sign the extension. Whether the roster around him gets better, or just cheaper, is the open question.

On injuries, Windhorst said neither Luka Doncic nor Anthony Edwards will be ready for the start of the second round. Edwards is in recovery, not ramp-up. Doncic has not started contact basketball. The Lakers, he said, need Austin Reaves to deliver scoring beyond LeBron, especially with Reaves about to ask for one of the largest contracts in franchise history.

Rich closed with the show's prediction bit. Windhorst called for three Game 7s on the weekend, including a possible Cavs scare in Cleveland and a Cade Cunningham eruption in Orlando.